Well, that would pretty much sum them up, except me being me I always feel the need to expound. :)

Lovely title. Don't we all have our own history of the world? Isn't Eowyn's so reflective of too many women's histories? That really put me into Eowyn's shoes somehow, even before the drabbles began.

#1: I love how Theoden thinks Eowyn is the ghost of her mother. That is brilliant and feels so obvious. ...a grief that should have faded with spring flowers. *shivers*

#2: She's almost a ghost to the son as well. (And nice sub-title here, too.) I like the connection between situations that you draw here (and throughout the "family" drabbles), of shared trials even though the men don't always catch on to it: Like a maze this hall has seemed of late, and I come daily to think there is no way out. Save one. Poor Theodred; I wish he'd gotten more recognition in the text...

#3: We are more alike, lady, than you care to admit. Ugh. Too true, perhaps, but Eowyn is not yet reduced to Grima's level of "ordering" etc. Quite different motives, whatever he may justify within himself. I wonder which was worse for her: the cage built by malice or the cage built by misunderstanding and neglect? A great contrast, too, between the "queen" image here and the ones later in the drabble.

#4: What an interesting situation it is, isn't it, when Aragorn tells her "no"? On the one hand, it probably wouldn't do for him to encourage abandonment of duty (and if he had, the Battle before Minas Tirith may have gone quite differently). And yet Aragorn grew up among Elves where the gender expectations seem more fluid, so his rigidity feels odd. I tend to give him more credit for seeing that what Eowyn desired was not to be found on his road, painful as it was to see her suffer at the moment. But this you write well (as always!), and whatever his motivations Aragorn's refusal (cage door slamming) pushed Eowyn into movement that helped shift the larger history of the world. "Ill chances", yes, that bloomed into greater good.

You have no place or purpose in the south. *wicked chuckle* Not too foresighted there, Strider.

#4: Merry's voice is so wonderful here! What love and greatness in that little Hobbit heart. I've always loved that Eowyn, in the depths of her grief and despair, reached out beyond herself to help Merry accomplish his own thwarted desire.

#5: I love this: Together we stand, waiting for our uncle, and I ache for you and grip your hand. You whisper to me, “Fear not, brother. I am at your side.” It encapsulates Eowyn perfectly. Eomer's late appreciation for his sister's plight is excellently written. In the darkness they were all in, I can see (if not entirely excuse) why so much was missed.

#6: Wise Gandalf. Yes, he lays it out plainly, doesn't he? The world did both, judge and forgive, although I think the final rendering was honor. I wonder how much of an internal struggle Eowyn had in the years following, between judgment and forgiveness of herself and of her cage-builders, unwitting or not?

#7: How I love that Faramir, who sees the hearts of men, "gets" Eowyn!! He really is a shining light amidst the darkness. And it would be a risk to Eowyn to respond: what if he was as ephemeral or traitorous a hope as what she'd seen before the darkness fell? There can be a lot of fear in falling in love and trusting again.

Wow. This just makes their relationship glow for me all over again. Thank you!

#8: As Ellyn said, a mother's love shown perfectly. This is beautiful, and a perfect cap to the drabble series, an excellent contrast to all the preceding cages and complement to Faramir's opening the door to freedom. That kind of love is what any mother would wish for her little girl. (I refuse to think ahead to AGoC at this point. No, I won't!)

Though I note that Eowyn's own voice is missing - intentional, I'm sure. Reflecting the silence we see noted in her family's drabbles?

Just awesome, awesome, awesome. I'm so thankful you were inspired to write it!

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Great use of snippets of the text as titles, and as descriptions wending their way through the little stories that each man tells about his encounter(s) with Éowyn.

I think the Gríma drabble was most revealing, for the way it tried to align Gríma and Éowyn - very unsettling, and it gives Gríma a different, seductive face. In his own eyes, at least, he is a reasonable man, with the same dreams Éowyn has.

Théoden's drabble, from the depths of his ensorcellment, is probably the most sad - and perhaps an appropriate starting point for "A woman's history": it begins with no one knowing who you are, with people being unable to see you.

The Gandalf and Théodwyn drabbles were lovely for their bringing into focus, in a personal fashion, the question of the judgment of history as it faces the rare woman who enters it.

Thanks for these, Altariel!

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